Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Senate Votes to Re-Open Government, House Next
The US government ran out of money 6 weeks ago. In any other democracy, a government that cannot pass a budget must resign. The weakness of the US Constitution is that the politicians who cannot agree on what to fund get to say in office. So, after more than a month of inaction, eight US Senators from the Democratic side (Angus King of Maine is an independent but he caucuses with the Democrats) voted with the Republicans to fund the government. For their votes, they got a promise of a vote on healthcare subsidies. Now, the deal goes to the House where it may well pass. So who won the shut-down? It was not the decisive encounter most believe.
The Republicans went into the shut-down convinced that the voters would hold the Democrats responsible. This is baffling. The voters are ignorant and fickle, but they do know that the Congress and White House are controlled by the GOP. No SNAP benefits and no federal paychecks are blamed on the people in control. The greenest political analyst could get this right. Instead, the Republicans misread the room, and if Tuesday's election results are anything by which to go, they will have a lot of work in the next year to avoid an electoral collapse in the mid-terms.
For their part, the Democrats went to the mat to get the Affordable Care Act subsidies restored. This speaks to the lack of affordability in American life, but having control of none of the levers of governmental power here meant they overplayed their hand. They were never going to force the GOP to restore those subsidies. Those decrying the Senators who voted to restart things failed to appreciate the arithmetic of the Congress. Those who crossed the aisle deserve a good chewing out for wasting time and political capital. The deal they took has been on the table for weeks. They put the American people through needless suffering if they did not have the courage of their convictions.
The bill now goes to the House, and the verdict is still out on how that will work. First off, Speaker Mike Johnson has said there may not be a vote in the House on the subsidies, which would render the Senate vote moot even if it has passed unanimously. That may be a problem because he can lose 2 Republican votes and stll pass legislation. Three would break the GOP majority. Marjorie Taylor Greene has already defied the party and president by saying her constituents need the subsidies. There are sufficient swing district Republicans representatives that finding two more is possible.
Even if everything goes as the dealmakers and takers want, the government runs out of money again on January 30. That means that if things do not get resolved, the country and the world get to do this all over again in a couple of months. It is hard to say getting it all done is likely.
The easiest way for things to get resolved would be for the vote on the subsidies to pass the Senate, and for the House to agree (either by Speaker Johnson wising up or through a discharge petition that requires 218 signatures). If the subsidies die in either chamber, there is a reasonable chance the Democrats will let funding run out in January. That could prove to be a mistake because the deal has killed off any momentum the party had. Going to the barricades for a second time takes a lot more effort than getting them manned in the first instance.
Regardless of how this plays out, the Republicans have been tarred with the anti-healthcare brush, and the Democrats still managed to look divided and weak. While the voters at the moment seem to blame the GOP more than the Democrats, none of that will matter much next November. A lot can happen in a year, and whatever happens is going to overshadow this shut-down. It was a notable battle but hardly a decisive one. Both sides lost quite a bit, with the Republicans losing more.
The decline under the Trump administration continues to accelerate.
© Copyright 2025 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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